A Southern friend in a cassock and collar sent along this thought for the day, by way of Garrison Keillor and his Writer's Almanac out in Public Radio land. You can listen to this online, of course:

It was on this day in 1891 that Henrik Ibsen's (books by this author) play Ghosts opened on the London stage. Ghosts was considered a controversial play because it contained details about incest and sexually transmitted diseases, and Ibsen refused to give his audiences the happy endings they were used to. The play had already been banned in St. Petersburg on religious grounds when it premiered in London.

Henrik Ibsen wrote in Act 2: "I almost think we're all of us Ghosts. ... It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be Ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light."

Hmmmmm ... I'm not sure I want to embrace that fear of the "lifeless old beliefs" of the parents, which certainly hasn't been a major theme in my life. However, that Ghosts in the newspaper thing is rather nice. I like that image.

Does anyone out there want to offer some other (be nice) newsy thoughts for this busy day?